METAPHYSICS BOOK GAMIMA: ARISTOTLE AND THE LOGIC OF SUBSTANCE Rosemary Anitra Laycock Subrnitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 1998 O Copyright by Rosemary A. Laycock, 1998 National Library Bhbthèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services senrices bibliographiques 395 WWrngtorr Street 395. rue w43lGngton OttawaON K1AW OUawaO(J K1AôN4 Canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or seli reproduire, prêter, distriiuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. 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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page vi 1 Bekker No. lOO3a2l- lOO3a33 This Science is an Ontology . 6 1003a2 1- 1003a33 Being has a nature - 6 loO3a33- lûû5a 18 Fmm Oatology to Ousiology: Being and Unity II& "Ev . 9 IOMa33-1003b23 Being is not self-identicai in a plurality . 12 1003622-1004a2 Being and unity are correlative - 16 1004a3-1004a9 Al1 substances fdI under one science 18 1004a9-1004a20 The nature of non-king . 11 1004a20-1-18 One science considers kingand its attributes 23 1005a19-1005b34 From OrisioIogy to Aitiology 2'7 1005b35- 1009a5 Formal Cause: The Logic of Same and Other 33 1006a18100&3 The PNC as an ontological principle . 34 1006a29- 1006b34 Being as the subject of defiuition . 34 1006h35- 1 ma8 Being as the self-identical . 36 1007a9-1007bU3 Being as substance and essence - 37 l007bl8- 1008a2 Being as potentiai . 41 1~-1009aS The PNC as an epistemological principle . 42 1-7- 1OOgb3 Without assertion & denial there is no finitude for thought . 44 I008b2- 1009rt5 Al1 men make unqualified j udgements 46 lOO9a5-lOl la3 The Unchanging Foiindation of the Senst'Me 50 100%51009a22 Those rejectiop substance & essence have a common position 50 1009a33-1999b12 The apparently contradictory nature of the sensible . 53 1009b12- 1Ob38 The identification of knowledge with sensation . 57 101Chl-1010a37 The exposition of the fundamental nature of change 60 1010bl- lOlOb3 Imagination is not sensation 67 lOlOb4- lOIObl4 Objects of knowing exist apart from the perceiving subject . 70 1010b14-101 la3 Sensible objects exist apart from the perceiving subject . 75 1010b14- 1010b30 Sensation of the proper object of sense is not false . 76 1010h3(1101 la3 The sensible world has a reality apart from sensation . 77 1011s3-101lb22 r6 Everything Cannot be Relative 80 101 Ia3-101 la14 There can be no ultirnate criterion of judgement - 80 101 lal6-101 lbl The assertion that al1 appearances are true must be qua1 ified 83 1011b4-IO1 lb7 The perceiving subjectis not the cause of the the sensible - 84 101 1b7-1011b12 The kfutationof Rotagoras reveals the nature of the relative 8s 101 1bl5lOl lb23 Contrarietv is a determinate privation . 88 CONTENTS Bekker No. page 101 1 b23- 10 12a28 I7 Potentiaiity is Not Indeterminate , . 89 101 1b29- 101331 Contrariety is distinguishablefrom contradiction in general . 90 101212-103a17 There can be no intermediate between contradictones . 91 1012a17-101%28 The beginning must be with definition -93 1012a29-1012b31 f8 TowardsaTbedogy:TheUnityofTiiinkmg&Being . 94 101'%i2% 1012b33 Definition is the bais of knowing . .% 1012bz-1013b3 1 The establishment of the bisfor the stability of king . 95 ABSTRACT Book r is Aristotle's response to the most pressing philosophical issue of bis day, Parmenides' demand that it is necessary to be able to think and to speak being. The challenge of Parmenides and the pround for Aristotie's own fint philosophy is found to be vested ultimately in soiving the problem that is presented by change and showing how non- being, as that which is in motion. can be said to be. It is the primary opposition of the unchanging Parmenidean One and the ever-changing Heraclitean flux that is the unspoken and overarchiog Dnopiu of Book T: and in the emergent recognition in r4-8 of Aristotle's own fundamental metaphy sical princi ples of essence and of po tency and act there is found the basis for a new understanding of the nature of reality. As pnnciple, substance is 'what is and is one', the central conception of beinp and unity npoç Év. As formal cause it defines an essential nature and delineates it from dl that it is not through an operational logic which extends to the whole of reality, encompassing both the actual and the potential. In establishing in Book r those key relationships which draw king xpbç Èv and SUvapiq npiy n into a conception of substance ordered é@&i~to the unrnoved mover as its ÙpXil, Anstotle draws free of the scepticism of those for whom truth resides only in the subjectivity of appearances and reveais the direction that thought will follow in the Metaphysics in reachinp its goal, this science as Ckokyticfi. The text and bglish translation of the Metaphysics used in this study are those of Sir David Ross, except that wbere necessary to clarify a philosophic point a more literal translation is given. For their helpful feedback on the interpretation of the text and invaluable insights into the thought of Anstotie. 1 thank in particular my thesis supervisor, Dr. D. K. House, and my readers, Dr. J. P. Atherton and Dr. A. M. Johnston. As Aristotle himself well recognized although it is in contemplation that there lies the geatest happiness, a human king needs also a modicum of extemal goods. In this respect, the support provided for this activity by the Tnistees of the Killam Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. vii INTRODUCTION Aristotle's deceptively simple and matter of fact opening statement to the Mefaphvsics embodies within a few short words the whole driving force of the argument. It is of the nature of man to wonder, to desire to know, and observations bear witness to this since, "as is coafirmed by the facts"(981b22). 'this science' is pursued for its own sake and not for any advantage. The momentum that pmpels the search fonuard is that desire, nascent within mankind, to escape fmm self-cooscious ignorance. This desire if it is to have any meaning must be ordered to an identxable end. At firsî men see the end in solving the obvious diff~cultiesbut graduaily they are moved, forced forward by the tmth itself, to seek higher and higber causes as knowledge is ordered ultimately to the first principle. for that which the human desires most God possesses. "ALI the sciences, indeed, are more necessary than this but none is bettern (983a10). It is that wonder, which begins in the awareness of an end not yet possessed, that leads inexorabty to the search for the imer connectedness which is the of reality itself. Whatever the controversy that attaches itself to the overail structure of the Metaphysics. 1 the pRsence of Book r as an integral part of a group of Books, ABï, which establish the basis for a metaphysics, is well attested.2 1t is, indeed, in Books A and B that the direction that Aristotle's thought will take is first revealed as he prepara the pundfor the introduction in r of his own understanding of the nature of reaiity. The opening chapters of Book A establish the template from which the work as a whole will evolve; from the simplest begimings in the sensory perceptions shared by al1 animals. the focus of the search is gradually narrowed to the speculative reasonings of the philosopher on the ultimate principles and causes. In keeping with the ordered and rationai progression of thought that he outlines, Aristotle tums quite naturally to his philosophicai forbears in the expectation of finding in them a gradua1 awakening of an awareness of the first principles of reality . Whereas each individual in a fini te lifespan may uncover on1y a small part of the truth, thought itseIf becornes imrnortal as in the reflections of each generation higher and higher truths are succesively garnered. Looking back in Book A upon the whole of Helleaic philosophy, Arictotle assumes a vantage point that allows him to analyze the findings of his predecessors from quite a different perspective. When viewed retrospectively what is revealed is a movement in W .D.Ross. ANiotle's Mefaphysics v. 1. (Oxford: Clarendon Rcss 1924). xiii. Rass, ArLrtotie's Mefaphysiics v. 1, avii-xviii. 1 history, an unfolding of the mind which exposes the ontology of being itself. Under Aristotle's @ding hmd there emerges from what is pariicular aod circumstantial in each of these philosophies a universal and necessary movement of thought from the sensible to the intelligible. It is. Aristotie states rcpeatedly ,the facts themselves that force the rnovemen t of thought in its determineci direction, from the physical to the mathematical to the Piatonic dialectic. and, finail y, through a disentmglement from al1 these chains to the doorway of wisdom itsetf. However, although thought is naturally ordered to its end. koowledge of the divine science. this know ledge is not readil y gasped and so the tme path cannot easily be discemed. The extreme ideaiism of the logïc of the Parmenidean One and the logical atomism of the materialists, Leucippus and Dernocritus, for example.